Red Tape on Spanish Visa Leaves Syrian Girl’s Surgery in Limbo

MADRID — Sham Aldaher came into the world in Jordan last July, safe from the horrors of the Syrian war that her family had fled, but born with a disfigured face and missing an eye. Doctors said she required urgent and complex surgery.

A children’s hospital in Barcelona has offered her free emergency care. But bureaucratic obstacles have left her stranded among other Syrian refugees in Jordan. She has been unable to obtain a Spanish visa, despite the support of a team of international lawyers.

The kind of red tape that risks leaving Sham with permanent disfiguration underlines the shortcomings of the efforts of Western governments to provide a coordinated and efficient response to a mass influx of Syrians and other refugees, according to lawyers.

“I’m seeing a lot of cases of children with critical needs who can’t move anywhere because of political roadblocks,” said Jayne Fleming, the pro bono counsel and the leader of the human rights team at Reed Smith, an American law firm. “I don’t want to demonize Spain, but there is certainly a need for more cooperation between governments.”

Spain’s Foreign Ministry said that Sham’s visa application had not been processed because it did not meet the required application criteria. A spokeswoman said the ministry could re-evaluate the infant’s case.

Spain, like other European countries, has been heavily criticized by humanitarian organizations for taking in far fewer migrants than it had said it would accept. Under a European Union agreement last year, Spain pledged to admit 16,000 migrants from refugee camps in Italy and Greece. It has also agreed to receive a smaller number of refugees from Syria’s neighboring countries.

Spain’s interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, said this month that the country planned to welcome 1,000 migrants by the end of the summer.

However, Spain has fast-tracked some special cases. Last month, the foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, announced that the government was processing the application of Osman Ahmed, a 7-year-old Afghan who has cerebral palsy and who was in a refugee camp in Greece.

However, Jörn Halling, a German lawyer with Reed Smith also working on Sham’s case, said that the Spanish Embassy in Amman, Jordan’s capital, had advised him that Spain’s resettlement program did not cover Jordan, which meant that the embassy could not process her visa.

Sham and the rest of her family — her parents and three siblings — have received conditional approval to resettle in the United States. But their American applications are subject to background checks, with no date set for their completion. Furthermore, no American hospital has so far offered the free treatment that would now be available to Sham in Barcelona, Ms. Fleming said.

Rubén Díaz, one of the directors of the Sant Joan de Déu hospital in Barcelona, said that in late March his doctors offered to perform the surgery Sham needed and provide six months of free treatment, but that the hospital was not involved in resolving the visa issue.

“Part of the reasoning to use our center is that it would be easier to get here” from Jordan, Dr. Díaz said. “As it turned out, it has not, because of the visa problem.”

The initial treatment in Barcelona would leave Sham needing more operations into her adult years, as her face continues to grow. But the first surgery is crucial “to prevent permanent disfigurement,” Ms. Fleming said. The city of Barcelona has also offered to cover all of the family’s expenses while Sham is in the hospital, she said.

The advanced surgery Sham needs cannot be performed in Jordan, but she was examined there by doctors, including a visiting American craniofacial surgeon, David Matthews, to establish the urgency of her case.

Ms. Fleming said that she and her colleagues were still studying alternatives to resolve the visa problem. The child’s family, she said, would be willing to relocate to any European country that could both guarantee their safety and provide Sham with the care she needs, even as they remain on the resettlement track for the United States. The family fled Syria for Jordan in 2013.

“We understand every country is overwhelmed and lacking resources, but this is one case where we have identified resources, and it is just a problem of a visa and administrative roadblocks,” Ms. Fleming said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Red Tape on Spanish Visa Leaves Syrian Girl’s Surgery in Limbo. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe